Parallel Lives
by Hearns
Summary: When the Transgenics dilemma bleeds between dimensions a intervention must be staged for the lives of two Transgenics whose destinies will determine the paths of their worlds. A Crossover with Brin Pfiffer’s Seige Saga and Shannon Hearn’s Hidden Dange


Parallel Lives By Shannon Hearn and Nikki "Brin" Pfiffer

All Characters are owned by Twentieth Century Fox and Cameron Eglee productions.  The personal creations of the other Characters belong to

Shannon Hearn and Brin.  This is a crossover between the worlds of Hidden Danger Crouching Cat of Shannon Hearn and The Siege Universe of Brin.

***

There are levels or reality based on the choices and decisions that we all make in our lives.  One decision in one timeline leads to an epic battle while in another timeline a small battle was fought with long reaching implications.  Sometimes people can move between these barriers for a short period of time so that they can learn about what might have been or will be in their lives.  But sometimes, the links between worlds can be brought about when two souls are searching for the answers they do not have.  This is a tale, of two sets of people between worlds who are out to seek the answers they need so that they can answer the questions of their lives.

***

Sitting outside of her apartment Aspen Kilowa was sunbathing in the rare sunlight of Seattle.  The homemade swimsuit she wore made her Polynesian features seem more ephemeral.  The PsyOp whose gift for knowing the paths of destiny felt that things were going to change for them all with the events that had passed though.  It had been several months after the Siege of Terminal City had ended.  But, Melfina Nichel was having problems of her own.  For the X-series custom whose talent for computer hacking had earned her the Internet call sign, Lady Chimera.  One of Eyes Only's many Transgenic operatives that he had among the Manticore community.  Rumors and legends had sprung up about Lady Chimera since her cable hack that helped Eyes Only expose White as being an enhanced human and his cronies who were wreaking havoc on both the Ordinary and Transgenic communities.  Though information that White and his bunch were part of a several millennia old Breeding cult was not public knowledge yet.  But, the more digestible fact that Manticore was one of many Super soldier programs that the United States and many other nations had started over the years made people sleep better at night.

With Shadow, Max, Luna, Mole, Jed, Rain, Domo, and Joshua making up the Transgenics Command Council, many of the members of the Ordinary community felt that if these leaders could control the various factions of TC, then they would leave the Transgenic community alone.

Melfina, who over the past few months had felt that her friendship with the T-Blood leader Rain was not what it was.  Mel had felt lost after Rain had accepted a position on the Transgenic's Council, but Rain had helped her through her first heat cycle outside of Manticore.  But, Mel right now had felt that Rain had abandoned her and she was hurting emotionally.  Right now she needed a friend to talk to, someone who knew what she was going through emotionally.  Heck even Melfina's boyfriend Dalton was having problems getting across to her, she seemed to growing more and more distant with every passing day.  Aspen was understanding that Mel needed to know that PsyOp, X7, BioCyber, Gias and all Transgenics and People were all interconnected together through the mystical waves of the Universal Magics.

Aspen knew that tonight's slumber party would make things better for the young X6.  But, the understandings of the events to come would lead to the two of them hitting another reality, where the events of the last few months had unfolded differently for a different set of Transgenics. Their Siege had been bloody and horrific for them all.  For a Cat Normalize named Eddie, her first week of High School had turned into a nightmare.

***

This was not how it was in the movies.

What happened to throwing dirt at the rejects instead of attempting to kill/drug/frame them?

Eddie stretched her lithe body over the couch, arms spread high over her head, trying very hard not to purr on the comfortable, overstuffed pads, and pushing down the impulse to scratch the stuffing out of them to sharpen her fingernails. Usually she paid little attention to her purely cat desires - and by that method she was generally able to act human - but when she was alone (especially with a perfectly scratchable couch), her instincts sometimes shone through brighter than ever.

And she hated it.

X series didn't have to go through this. They were the lucky ones. Seizures - big deal! Manticore had treatments. Tryptophan worked well, especially in liquid form. Ordinaries went after them as if they were freaking sex gods and goddesses (which, in truth, they kinda were). They didn't have pointy ears that people liked to stare at, or strange growths on their faces that were the subject of many scrutinizing whispers. For anomalies and transhumans... there was just no winning.

What would it be like to be... any X series? Jondy? Max? Ralph? Brin?

Syl? They were all beautiful. It was like a bad Hollywood movie in which all the women were gorgeous and smart and athletic and...

Eddie looked in the mirror. She hated her eyes. They changed color with different kinds of light - from brown to hazel to emerald. Right now they were glowing green as they reflected the dim light of the room - just like a normal housecat. Her pointed ears were annoying, too. It was enticing to think that a quick slice would take off those damned points. That would be doing a justice to society, wouldn't it? It would be good to try and look normal so that little kids wouldn't turn and run screaming, right?

The cat anomaly rose to her feet and walked from the bedroom into the kitchen. Her tail swished and swayed as she padded across the floor. This appendage was probably the single most obvious reference to her DNA flaws. She could wear contacts to cover her eyes. She could fix her ears or wear a hat, but there was no way to hide that damned tail.

As the girl came into the kitchen, she noticed that either Alec or Max had left the dishwasher open. The only items in it, as of now, were a few plates, a cutting board, and a butcher knife.  Its silvery edge glinted even in the dim light. Eddie sauntered forward, tail still swishing, and picked it up. Her tail twitched. The knife gleamed.

What are you doing?! What are you doing?! That double-crossing little voice - her conscience - cried as the cat anomaly grabbed the cutting board and placed it on the counter, soon followed by her tail. Almost as if it had a mind of its own, her thick striped tail twitched and wriggled against the iron grip of her left hand. In her right hand she held the knife. It gave the sudden impression of a jaw full of teeth ready to bite off her unwanted accessory, ready to clamp down.

Her sight was red, her mind boggled by blind fury at her shitty luck in life. She didn't hear the door open. She didn't want to hear it. Her arm dropped, and so did the knife, and her eyes closed to wait for the impact, but it never came. Slowly... very, very slowly... she came back into consciousness. Sounds drifted back into focus - the crying of a baby, her own labored breathing - and the crimson leaked from her vision until the cattish girl could do nothing but collapse in a heap, the knife having been removed from her now-clenched fingers. Tears moistened her cheeks, dripping onto her lap as she sat on the linoleum, unsure of what to do.

"Eddie," a soft voice said.

Bleary-eyed, she looked up into the soft almond-eyes of Brin and went limp as the X5 pulled her into a tight hug.

"It's gonna be alright, honey. You're gonna be fine. Shh... everything's okay. You're okay," whispered Brin as she rocked the adolescent back and forth. Baby Ben had stopped crying in his portable crib, which was sitting on the dining room table.

Time ticked by bit by bit, as if the entire world had slowed for them, and they held onto each other for dear life.

***

In another reality, a very upset X6-series custom was running out of an apartment building, with her dry suit in her book bag.  Melfina was upset about this girl's night out slash slumber party.  Why had she been born an X-Series Custom, hell it was hard enough just being a regular standard issue X-Series in this world.  However, since she performed Oral Sex on Normal's finger a day before the Terminal City Siege, she tried her best to fight back her more animalistic tendencies.  Hell, even having Gills and an electro shock gland did not make the situation any better for her.

Heck even among the Transgenics she knew, she was an outsider.  The only people she let close to her about what she truly was, were Max, Cindy, Nanushka Cindy's lover, Hannah, Dalton her boyfriend, Joshua and Rain.  But due to Rain's role on the Transgenic council she felt like an outsider.  Rain understood what it was to be an outcast.  After the treaty between the Ordinaries and the Transgenic took effect, she and several other Transgenics were offered full access to White's old facility to track down their lost comrades White had shipped off for study.

Otto, White's former right hand man had felt that after Hannah the Gill Girl had gone to bat to protect him from losing his job, felt that he had the best odds of fixing the wrongs that had been perpetrated against the Transgenics along with Lieutenant Clemente and Detective Sung.

Mel who was one of the few Transgenics that was allowed to work on the computers and sort through the files of what White was really up to during his little Transgenic hunt, and what she had learned made her sick to her stomach.  When Mel saw that her file was covered in all this encryption that Cerberus, an AI she knew, had laid over it to protect her and the rest of her particular series.  She was concerned more about being considered an outcast among her fellow Transgenics due to this.  That she was something other than your standard issue X-Series.

She was more afraid of being learned about that she had Aquatic capabilities like Hannah and the rest of the Naval units around Terminal City.  Hannah had learned about what she was and was happy about it.  Hannah had taken her under her arm and taught her how to be okay with who she was, but that was not enough for Melfina.  She just wanted to be a regular X-series like the rest of the residents of Terminal City.

There was one occasion where she had fallen asleep in the bathtub and had not come up for air while staying at Rain's place.  It wasn't so bad, but it happened around Amber when it occurred.  Melfina had to pat down her hair so that her gill slits were covered afraid of what had happened to Lauren would happen to her.  Lauren, another BioCyber X-series custom had let it be known that she had gill slits and she got ostracized by many of the regular X-series in the progress and Melfina was worried that the same thing was going to happen to her.

Between this ostracizing that had occurred between the different series from Manticore, Max had done her best to cut the crap out of the way and make the units function as a society.  Mel was scared that she was going to be found out as something different, even among the "Freaks" of Seattle.  Original Cindy and her life partner Nanushka had become her friends but they did not know what it was like to be a "Freak" among the Freaks.  Nanushka and Cindy had offered her a shoulder to cry on after she went on a date with an Ordinary during a Halloween party.  The Ordinary at the party had dressed like an X-series and she had decided to go with him afterwards.  That was a big mistake.  The moment that she had gotten to his place, they were practically stripping each other down to almost nothing.  It wasn't until the guy and her were in the shower bathing that the dude freaked out after seeing her gills and jumped out.  She was just left standing there naked after she tried to explain that she was an X-custom and that she had liked the guy due to him being a regular X-type.  That was until she saw the running ink down his shoulders.  The barcode he had on was a fake and she had gotten scared and ran out of the bathroom grabbing her stuff on the way.

Melfina had ran through the streets pulling her clothes on fearful that the cops would come and toss her behind bars.  It wasn't until she got to OC and Nanushka's apartment she had felt safe.  Mel had shown up at the door sopping wet and shaking like a leaf as OC wearing nothing but a bathrobe as she answered the door.  Mel had just broken down in OC's arms just crying and scared from being found out as a "Thing".

Nanushka who was new to OC's friends did not know that Mel was a Transgenic until Nan saw the barcode on the back of Mel's neck.  Nan was a little apprehensive about Mel at that time but it wasn't until OC stated that she knew several of the Transgenic community and knew how they all ticked that Nanushka finally relaxed enough to actually shake Mel's hand.  That was several months ago.  Nanushka had finally accepted that Mel was just a scared girl who did not know how to act around Ordinary humans at times and in a essence, Mel was just a scared teenager trying to figure out who she was in this crazy world.

Right now, Melfina decided to go down and tell Nan and OC that she was going to be laying low for a few days until she figured out what to do with her life.  Little did she know that beings from beyond were going to put her on a collision course with someone who was in the same boat as she was that needed to know that like her, she was not alone.

***

"Hello Brin," a voice rang out between the dimensional realms as the distance between one entity to another started to happen.

"Hey, Shannon.  What's happening with you?"  Another voice replied back.

"Brin, I think that we have a situation developing between the realms of reality 330055705 and 990001497 and it might be serious."

"How Serious."  Nikki Brin of dimensional realm 330055705 replied back to the communication that was occurring.

"Very.  As in if these two worlds are not set back into correct alignment, the several other worlds will fall as a result."  Shannon said as he looked at the lines of causality unfold between the multi-verses of existence.

"What do you mean Shannon?  What is going to happen if this is not resolved?"  The female guardian said in worry.

"Well, the two worlds that we have been watching over will start to collapse as four people hold the destinies of those world in their hands."

Shannon said as he produced an image of four women before his younger counterpart.  "These four people are linked to the realms and need to learn that the consequences in their lives will effect others on a large scale."

"Hey one of these girls looks like a cat."  Nikki Brin said looking at a picture of the Normalize Transgenic Eddie with surprise.

"Yes, Brin, she does look like a cat.  She is a Normalize, a human spliced with animal DNA."  Shannon said looking at the image of the young teenager.

"Yes I know what a Normalize is, I watch over them in my realm too."

Nikki Brin said as she corrected Shannon as she started to look at the other three images before her of a Polynesian Female, and two Asian females of differing ages.

"Brin, the Cat girl is your double in this other reality, and thanks to a mental state she is in, she might loose cohesion over her life."   Shannon said pointing out the problems that were soon about to start.

"I know if cohesion is lost between key individuals at key moments of history, then the dimensional realms are disrupted.  This in turn leads to that world going kablooey which ripples its way towards the other worlds of the Realm."  Nikki Brin said recalling the speech she was given when she accepted this job of Realm Guardian.

"Yes, well Melfina, the younger Asian in the pictures that I gave you is one of the other links between the realms.  She is linked to key events that have occurred and will occurred in the future on her world."

Shannon said letting her in on what he was planning on doing.

"I think that the only way to save both Eddie and Melfina is to create a bridge world for them to talk to each other."  Shannon said putting his plan into motion.

"So, group therapy between these two girls, you think will fix the alignment problem?"  Nikki Brin said looking at him.

"Yes, I think that it will.  The Eddie on your world has just attempted to maul herself, but was stopped by a friend of hers named Brin, the other Asian girl in the images that you have in front of you."  Shannon said projecting an image of Eddie and Brin holding each other in a kitchen.

"So what about Melfina and this Polynesian girl in this pile?"  Nikki Brin said looking at the other images before her.

"Aspen, the Polynesian girl is our ticket in creating the Bridge world we need."  Shannon said starting to explain his plan some more.  "Aspen has mental powers that might allow us to create the Bridge in their minds while keeping their bodies in the dimensions in which they exist."

"So how are you going to get Aspen to use these powers to create the Bridge?"  Nikki Brin said wondering how to solve the problem set before them.

"Melfina is on her way to the same location where Eddie and Brin are out Brin.  In this other reality, the apartment they are in is owned by a Russian Mafia Princess named Nanushka and Melfina is on her way to visit her now."  Shannon said letting Brin take the handle from there.

"So have the four of them in the same location, will allow you to create the Bridge without any fuss of breaking the rules of non-interference."

"Yeap.  That is correct."  Shannon said letting Brin take control of the events in this other realty.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Get Mel to shoot an energy blast at Aspen.  Thus Aspen uses her powers to deflect it and thus we are able to create the Bridge."

"Sound simple enough.  What do you want me to do?"  Nikki Brin said as she moved from one realty to another.

"I leave that in your capable hands Nikki Brin."  Shannon said as he prepared the realm for the Bridging of minds that was to take place soon.

***

Melfina was going up the stairs to Nanushka's loft by TC.  OC had been spending her weekends there with Nan they would have a "girls night out," but for right now Nan would be at home.  Mel had open up more to Nan and OC's sexuality and Nan out of curiosity once had kissed Mel to see if Transgenics lips felt like humans.  Well Mel said one thing after Nan had did it.

"You had Canollies for lunch.  Didn't you?"

The Blank stare of Shock on Nan's face was worth it.  Nan's response back was,  "Yeah, but I can tell you this... WOW, It felt like I kissed a Battery.  I hope that when you find that special someone, you kiss them until their hair stands on end."  Mel had then spent some time helping the young schoolteacher grade and record papers.

Mel just grinned at that thought remembering when Dalton kissed her for that first time.  She then blinked, realizing that Nan and OC were staring at her, waiting for her to say something.  Taking a deep breath, she said quietly, "I'm going away for a while."

"Away?  Where?" OC looked confused.

"I think I'm gonna hang with the Aquatics for a while... you know, give myself a little space to sort things out," explained the teen.

"Sort what out?" asked Nan, who also looked baffled by Mel's announcement.

Mel looked at her and let out a deep breath, running her fingers through her damp hair.  After gathering her thoughts and bearings, she answered, "Sort out where I belong in this world."

***

Back in TC, Aspen was conveniently sitting by her phone when it rang.  She snaked out a slender arm and answered it, "Hello?"

"Aspen," came the reply, along with the vague sound of sloshing water.

"Hannah," replied the Gia with a smile. "What's up?"

There was a brief pause, and then Hannah said, "I was calling to find Mel. She's going to be staying with us in the Waterdome for a few days. Has she left Original Cindy's yet?"

Aspen nearly dropped the phone. "She's what?"

"Didn't you know?" asked Hannah.

"Uhh... I'll have to call you back, Hannah," said Aspen slamming the phone down and grabbing her jacket.

***

Mel was eating a sandwich offered to her by Nan when someone started trying to break the door down. She jumped, nearly dropping her BLT, and watched as Nan leapt toward the door. After looking out the peephole, Nan turned and looked at Mel. "It's Aspen."

"Don't open it!" yelled Mel, but it was too late - Aspen broke the lock and the door swung open, narrowly avoiding hitting Nan as it did.

"Mel!" said Aspen as she strode into the room. "Sorry about the door."

"No problem," squeaked Nan, then hid behind OC as she walked into the room.

"Aspen, what's going on?" asked OC, hands on hips.

Instead of answering, Aspen looked at the deserted table and then into the kitchen, where she caught sight of Mel diving behind the counter. She stomped in there and glared down at the crouching teen. "Mel, what are you doing?!"

"Leave me alone, Aspen," mumbled Mel, not looking up at her friend.

"I know what you're doing," said Aspen sharply. "Mel, you should've come to me. You've got to start talking to one of us. We've been worried about you."

"I'm not doing anything. I just wanted to visit Hannah," replied Mel quietly.

"No, you're running," snapped Aspen.

Mel's head whipped up, her eyes fiery with anger. "I'M NOT RUNNING!"

Aspen, pleased that she was finally seeing some emotion in her young friend, kept pushing, "Yes, you are. You're running because you can't handle it."

Infuriated, Mel rose to her feet. "No!"

"Don't you see how selfish you're being?" said Aspen, though she was aware of the air beginning to crackle with electricity. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Mel was mad. "Running isn't the answer."

"I told you, I'm NOT running!" insisted Mel, resisting the urge to stamp her foot as she said this.

"Yes you are. You're taking the easy way out - running away." Aspen started moving forward. Her skin was tingling with static now, more of her hair rising on end.

Mel took a step around the open dishwasher and faced Aspen straight on. "Stop it!"

But Aspen didn't stop. She grabbed Mel by the shoulders and shook her lightly, saying in a very clear voice, "You're being a coward."

That did it. In blast that would've killed any normal creature, Mel let loose the full potential of her power on Aspen - the equivalent of a lightning bolt. There was a flash of light, a thunderous BANG, and then darkness.

***

In the space between dimensions, Nikki Brin laughed to herself as she viewed the black screen. After a moment, it went pepper-and-salt on her, then she began typing. "Let there be light," she said aloud, and the crackly screen changed to a familiar kitchen. "Add some actors." The kitchen was quickly populated with even more familiar people, and then she laughed again as she said, "Crank up the juice, and action!"

***

"What the hell?!" four voices yelled at once.

Eddie looked at Mel. Mel looked at Brin. Brin looked at Aspen. They leapt away from each other in shock, then all went into fighting mode.

"What's going on?" demanded Aspen, regarding Brin and Eddie. "Who are you?"

Brin narrowed her eyes. "Who are you?" She moved closer to Eddie and glanced at the dinner table, where baby Ben was sleeping peacefully. Next to the table was OC, clutching a woman Brin had never seen before and looking very bewildered.

"OC, Nan. Get out of here," said Aspen to the two women, but they ignored her. In fact, they began walking towards them. "What are you doing? Listen to me!"

They didn't listen, and began inspecting the kitchen.

"Where'd they go?" Nan was saying, her face pallid. "Did the blast...?"

"Nan, I'm right here," Mel said. She put out a hand to touch the woman, but, shockingly, her hand went right through. "Holy shit!"

"What the..." Brin said looking as the Asian girl's hand just passed right on through OC's body.  The look on Eddie's face was of sheer horror she started to collapse on the floor against the counter that was for some strange reason was solid.

"We're dead...  We're all dead."  Eddie said as she curled up into a fetal position, just rocking back and forth.  Her tail slowly inching its way into her hands as if it was giving her something to keep her mind occupied from the situation she was in.  The situation that they were all in right now, Eddie thought that they were all in Purgatory for their sins.

At that moment a male voice came from inside of the Bathroom of the apartment.  "No you are not."

Everyone all turned to see a young Caucasian man in his mid-Twenties with a slightly heavy build, Brown hair and wearing what looked like sunglasses along with a young athletic teenaged Asian girl that looked very catlike with a long ponytail moved into their view.

"Who the hell are you and why are you doing in OC and Nan's apartment?"  Aspen said to the point of nearly picking up the table and using it as a bludgeon on this guy's head.

"Well, My name is Shannon and..." the man said as he gestured over to the girl next to him, "this is my friend Nikki Brin.  We are the ones that brought you to this realm."

"Realm...  What do you mean by Realm?" Melfina said starting to move forward the man as Nikki Brin moved over towards Eddie to start to comfort her. Everyone that was physically in the room started to realize that they were not in control of the situation here, but it was these two that were running the show here so they took a wait and see attitude to figure out how to get home.

"Well, in layman terms, there is not just one universe.  There is a multi-verse in which many possible paths have occurred and will occur in."  Shannon said as he walked over to a vase of where Nanushka kept her lilies that was filled with marbles to hold it up.  Shannon took one of the marbles out and showed to the Transgenics in the room.

"Take this Marble here, Imagine it as a universe in which people live."  Shannon said holding up to the light and letting the rays shine through it.  "Well as you an see, it is just a small section of a larger whole when I place it into the container with the other universes."

"And this pertains to us why?"  Brin said as she attempted to reach out to touch her sleeping child Ben as the child slept peacefully on the table where she had left him when she had to save Eddie from chopping off her tail.

"Okay," Nikki Brin said, getting everyone's attention as she lifted the Cat Nomalie off of the floor and put her into the Chair that OC had vacated in one of the two worlds.  "To make a long story short, the four of you are from two different Parallel worlds.  Brin and Eddie here are from one where the Transgenics were able to expose the conspiracy that led to White and his boys from project Spartan to be taken down.  While Melfina and Aspen are from a world where Project Spartan was taken over by an Artificial Intelligence named Rika and she was able to put those forces with those of their Manticore Brethren and thus was able to stop the members of the Committee from using them against the Transgenic community."  The look on Aspen's face was of "Okay, so what."

"Wait, you mean that the Spartans fought beside you guys..." Brin said moving over towards Aspen as the Gias started to use her Spirit sense to get a feel of Brin.  The images that she had got were of two time lines, one where this Brin had wound up in Terminal City pregnant with Wolf's child, the clone of her Transgenic Brethren Zane and leaned on Zane when he appeared on TC for support and love.  But in her timeline her Brin had not become pregnant by Wolf, she had become pregnant by Zane himself and she had Fraternal Twins, a boy and a girl.  The only reason she knew about this is that an old member of her unit, Marzena, X5-478 a Lapis series Transgenic that was a mixture of animals such as Cat, Dog and Dolphin had helped save their Brin, from a suicide attempt ala Cop/Transgenic.  It had taken Marzena months to make sure that Brin was not a danger to herself or to the Canadian Transgenic community of Northern Point but having Tinga's family of her child Case and Charlie her husband there, forced their Brin to finally break the Manticore Brainwashing to restore her soul.  So how would this Brin behave around her?  Aspen decided to let things play out, but knew that this Brin just wanted to get back to her son, who was sleeping contently on the table.  Aspen just focused her attention on the two non-Transgenics in the room and wondered how did they get them here?

"Yes we did, the Conclave has been pretty much on the run with the Familiar community after their superior little Asses for the exposure of their kind."  Aspen said looking at Eddie who was looking at the scene unfolding before her.

"So what are you guys doing here?"  Melfina said realizing that their only way back to their home dimensions was through learning what these two individual knew about where they were at.  "And what is this place?"

"Well this is what is called a Middle-verse.  Think of it as a kind of a holographic observation room in which events can be examined.  In this case we are overlaying images from both your worlds so that you feel comfortable with it."  Shannon said moving his hand around the room.

"So why did you bring us here?"  Eddie said as she started to croak out the words.

"Well, the fates of two worlds lay in both of your hands Eddie and Melfina."  Shannon said moving over to the kitchen counter to pick up an apple.  "See the both of you wound up dealing with the Galactic slack that thanks to a series of events.  Events that the both of you were present at, but thanks to a subtle change of events in each timeline you wound up to be the focal point of each timeline."

"What do you mean?"  Eddie said as she started to realize that this crappy life she had been granted was probably the universes way of getting back at itself.  "My life so far is hell because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time."  The words coming from her mouth felt like she was getting angrier by the moment.

"Not really see, Eddie your life is the way it is not because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time," Shannon said, slowly moving his gaze to Melfina and she started to realize that she was the reason that Eddie's life was the way it was.  "It is because in your timeline Eddie, the Melfina from your world died when a spray of bullets fired at her from one of those Infiltrator guards at Manticore that torched the place, actually entered her skull and killed her."  Those words scared the crap out of Melfina as she moved to one of the chairs at the table Eddie was sitting at.  Melfina started to look at the Cat Nomalie as if due to a series of events Eddie wound up with her life instead.

"You mean I wound up with her life," Eddie and Melfina said at the same time.  Then out of realization that they said the same thing at the same time scared the crap out of them.  Brin and Aspen were just looking at the scene unfold as they realized that whatever was happening with the concept of the grass being greener on the other side was not exactly true.

"No, not exactly."  Nikki Brin said moving over to Shannon as she took what looked like a large coin out of her pocket and held it up.  "See, the Eddie in Melfina's timeline didn't run into Pick the night of the fire, she ran into Luke and he helped her tend for broken ankle, but in the process she lost her tail due to the injuries of it being broken in several places from her landing on her ass.  Luke had to amputate it to save her life after it had gotten infected."  She said as she showed a projected image of Eddie wearing a short cut green bikini.  What was noticeable was the fact that this Eddie was wearing a thong and right above the T-back section there was a small circular scar of where Eddie's tail had been. "Right now, in Mel's timeline she is working to get her degree in Education so that she can aid Joshua and several members of the community in opening a school in TC / Last Hope area for Transgenics, Ordinaries, Freeborn Familiars, and the rest of the being flocking to the area."

"Freeborn Familiars... you mean that you have friends among the Familiars?" Brin said looking at Baby Ben on the table as Nikki Brin's words started to sink in.

"Don't you think that Sandeman wasn't the only one who had an Ax to grind with the Familiar Hierarchy," Shannon said as this was getting to the point of getting these two groups up to speed on each other.  "Yeah the Freeborns started to break away right after the Black Death swept through Europe about five hundred years ago.  And since then they have slowly started to whittle away at the influence base of the Conclave leadership only leaving the die hards in place.  They are waiting for some ancient priestess to return so that she can remake the Familiar people how she sees fit."

"They see Max as that Priestess.  She is the end of the Familiars as they know themselves now, and the beginning of what they will become." Nikki Brin said with the entire room looking at her.

"So why did you bring us here?"  Eddie said, looking for the reason that they were brought to this place.

"Well the two of you - Eddie and Melfina - are the ones who will shape the worlds you are from," Shannon said, moving to the two teenage Transgenics.  "See right now the two of you feel that you don't fit in and don't belong.  Well me and Nikki Brin here have decided to bring the both of you together to do some group therapy with the two of you because you need it."

"So what do I have in common with this X-series girl," Eddie started to yell towards both Nikki Brin and Shannon.  "She's perfect; SHE CAN PASS FOR HUMAN," Eddie yelled, slamming her fists into the table.  "Look at me, I have been called Little Kitty so much I want to chop my tail and pointed ears off so I can look roughly human."  Eddie started to look emotionally drained as she started to break down in tears before Melfina.

"I wish I was an X-series too," Mel croaked out towards Eddie.

"What do you mean?"  Eddie said, shooting Melfina a glare that would have nuked the Deathstar in one blow.

"I'm an X-custom," Mel said as she moved the hair from back behind her ears to reveal the Gil slits she had.  "When they call me freak, I get really scared.  That's probably why I hang with the T-Bloods, the Aquatics and Joshua so much.  I just feel safe around them."  Mel could feel Eddie start to touch Mel's gills with her talon-ed nails.  "My life was perfect until the Pulse hit and me and other like me were tossed into other X-units and I was seen as a freak."

"So what could you mean by freak, I mean you have gills and you can hide them.  I have a FUCKING TAIL," Eddie screamed as she grabbed hold of her wayward Tail and held its waging end in front of Melfina.

"The Eddie of my world wished that she still had her tail," Melfina said gently, moving over to where Eddie was sitting and reached out her arm to comfort the Nomalie.

"What do you mean she wished that she still had her tail?"  Eddie said as she started to cry softly.

"Well the Eddie of my world has the ghost pains of where she had her tail."  Melfina said looking into Eddie's hazel eyes as Mel took out a Kleenex from her jacket and started to tab away at the Nomalie's tears.  "There are times that she takes out a scarf and plays with it, attempting to bring back the times she was safe when she was a child and when Joshua and Tegan comforted her from the nightmares she had."

"To protect me from the pit of fire where we would go if we failed," Eddie finished as she just started to shake.  Then Eddie started to look at Melfina in an understanding way.  "So it looks like you know me or her better than you think."

"Yeah, I do she helped me pass my GED so that I could keep my job at Jam Pony."  Melfina said starting to wonder why both this Cat Nomalie and herself had similar experiences, yet so different from each other.  Across the room Brin and Aspen were talking with Shannon and they would learn that the events to come were going to be a doosy.

***

"So I see that those two are working out their problems."  Shannon said as he turned his attention to Brin and Aspen.  "Now I must explain why I bought the four of you here."

"Okay... why did you?" Brin said looking at Shannon as Aspen started to get a sense that Shannon was a person that was more than he seemed to them.

"Well, since me and Nikki Brin cannot go to each of your worlds and talk with them and guide them through this time in their lives.  They need to know that they are not alone in the world.  Kinda of like group therapy, but without the bill," Shannon said as he looked at the two teenaged Transgenics start to open up about how their lives had been like for the two of them.

"So why Grab Aspen and me along with those two?"  Brin asked, starting to realize that there was some reason that Shannon was holding back on.

"Well think of it as a 'I need a witness' clause being part of my organization," Shannon answered as he looked at Brin and started to realize that she missed being with her Baby and wanted to get back to her child quickly just so that she could feel the baby's softness against her.

"So you did this out of a sorta protection clause to make sure that Eddie and Mel so that no one would think they were crazy?"  Aspen said starting to realize that Shannon was doing his best to make her understand that the circumstances he was under were beyond his control.

"Yeah, considering what those two have in front of them, I think it is best that they talk with each other for a while.  It might help them sort out what is happening to them at this point in their lives."  Shannon said as he moved over to Nikki Brin and tapped her on the shoulder.  "Nikki Brin, there is something I have to take care of, Okay."  He said as he knelt down next to her.  "Listen, do your little therapy thing as I take Aspen and Brin on a tour of the facility, so I am giving you control over the system so that you can project any image they come up with at your command.  Okay."  With that Nikki Brin nodded as Shannon took Aspen and Brin on the tour of the facility leaving though the bathroom in which they had entered through.

***

Nikki Brin decided to move this conversation to someplace more comfortable.  So she transformed the Living Room Environment to someplace that would feel more comfortable for the two.  The Greenhouse gardens on top of the parking garage in Mel's Terminal City.

"How about I make this place a little more comfortable for the two of you."  Nikki Brin said as she transformed the environment to the greenery of the garden.  It took a moment for Mel to realize that this was the garden where many of the Reptiles lived in during the colder months of the year.  It was warm and comfortable and many of the Transgenics liked to go there and relax for a while letting the peace of the place bring a calmness to their lives.  It was literally an Oasis from the problems in this broken world.  "How's this?"

It took a moment for both the Transgenics to realize that the environment had been changed as the two of them looked at the Asian girl as she changed her own features to look more catlike to them.

"Hey why did you change the environment?"  Melfina said as she started to realize that Nikki Brin had changed too.

"Well I kinda wanted the two of you to feel more comfortable."  She said realizing that she had just freighted the two.  "Sorry about that..." Nikki Brin realized that she had erred without asking them first.  "I felt that this might be a better place for the three of us to start talking."

"So you are able to change what this place looks like and your appearance by will?"  Melfina said, looking at Nikki Brin with wonder.  "Is it through some interface with the computer around here?"  She said starting to search out with her powers to find out if she could do the same thing with her powers.

"Melfina I suggest that you don't try?"  Nikki Brin said towards the BioCyber Transgenic.  "I can shape the environment to your tastes, but you cannot interface with the system.  It is shielded so that only my specific neural frequencies can affect the environment.  But I can tailor it to fit your personal memories of what we have on file from your worlds."

"You mean even the embarrassing ones, such as our not so pleasant ones," Eddie said realizing that Nikki Brin might have access to her Cat in Heat situation with Panther a few months after the Manticore fire.

"Well you mean your little raging hormones incidents...  I say yes," Nikki Brin said as at that moment Eddie's hormonal strip down of Panther in the back of an abandoned car and Melfina's oral sex session with Normal's finger both appeared at the same time.  Then the image shifted to a naked Melfina being in a large circular tank as she viewed a projected image on the tank's wall.  Mel seemed to look no older than, ten or twelve years old as she sorted through the computer data being streamed to her.  Eddie was in awe as she saw Mel in what was to be considered an extraction tank by the other Transgenics.   Then there was a shift in the image as it was years later and Mel was wearing spandex shorts and a tube top and data gloves on her crossed hands.

"What is this image?"  The Cat Nomalie said looking at the scene before her.

"It is what I was developed for, and the main reason I have the gills that I do."  Melfina said looking at the tank she had spent hours in off and on through out her life at Manticore.  "I was developed for electronic warfare.  I'm able to jack into computers by sheer will.  If it has a microchip in it I am able to talk with it due to me have Eel DNA in my Cocktail."  This last statement caught Eddie off guard.

"You are part fish?"  Eddie said looking at Melfina the real as she started to get through her head that this girl had more issues than she did.  "And I thought I was the lab rat."

"Yeah, well my life was fine up till the pulse and they tossed me into the regular X-Units."  Melfina said as she started to remember the nightmares of being used as a tool and being seen as a reject from a defunct project.  That was when the images of a shaved head Melfina in the Manticore Courtyard scared the crap out of her.  That was when the conversations of the other X6s said about her and the other BioCybers.

"Hey look at her."  Said one of the female X6s in the hushed tones that only the Transgenics could hear.  "I hear that she is from a unit that was full of rejects that has Cat DNA in there Genetic mixes like the X5s."

"Yeah from what I hear, they seriously messed up some mission and they decided to dump them to our unit so that they could get some more field training."  Said another X6 female by the first one.

"Yeah, and trust me we had to wear gear to keep your Eel DNA in check as each of the Transgenics like me were forced to ware very large insulated metal gloves."  Melfina said remembering the incident from her memory.  Then as one of the arrogant X6s decided to pick on one of her fellow units, Mel had started to rev up her powers and attempted to fire a bolt at one of them.  That was until her charge came back and hit her directly.  The scream from her lungs was deafening as the electrical shock surged throughout her body as she fell to the ground to in front of the other Transgenics.  As the charge she put off raged through her body as one of the guards came over to prod her over with his Tonfa.

"Now listen X6-209, you and the rest of your series will be ordered to be with these other X6 units.  So it means you will learn combat their way."  He said as he hit her in the stomach with the insulated Tonfa.  "Understood."  All Melfina could do was nod, but the guard wanted a vocal answer from her.  "I did not hear you soldier."  The guard said as he took the T-section of the club of the Tonfa and pressed it against her neck.

"Yes sir," she said as she croaked it out with what strength she had.  With that the guard removed the Tonfa from her neck and she started to roll over so that she could get up.

"Good."  The guard said as he moved over and shoved Melfina into line with the rest of her series.  "Now listen, you Xs the gloves you have on your hands prevent you from using your powers so don't even think about removing them, they have a micro detonator in them that is designed to take you out if you try to remove them."  The guard paced in front of them.  "They will only be removed when you pass combat training.  Understood."  The rest of Mel's unit said, "Yes sir" loudly but Mel who was weakened tried her best to say it in her weakened state.  From that point on her powers would not be her's until she proved herself.  She was one of the Damned Transgenics of Manticore; she was in a world between being called a Nomalie and a X-series.

"I wished to be an X-series so bad that I could taste it."  Melfina said as she collapsed to the floor by Eddie.

"I thought I had it bad."  Eddie said as she moved over to the X-Custom and sat down by her to start comforting her.

"Mind I tell you a little about my life," the Cat Nomalie said to Melfina as held her close as Nikki Brin started to project Eddie's memories in the Holodeck. The first image was of Eddie as a young child, five or six. She was strapped to a cold metal chair in a dingy gray room. In front of her was a projection screen, two guards stood behind her, and on one wall was a mirror that was most likely one-way so that she could be observed. An image of a glove appeared on the screen as a voice boomed over unseen speakers:

"What do you see?"

Young Eddie, cold and scared, glanced around nervously before saying slowly, "Hand."

"Close. Glove. Give her an injection of chemical 746," said the voice.

One of the guards stepped forward and pulled a filled syringe from his utility belt. He rubbed the skin of her forearm, which was already red and swollen from previous injections, and inserted the needle. Eddie squirmed and whimpered in her seat, eyes watering.

In the present, Melfina asked, "What are they doing to you?"

Eddie self-consciously rubbed her forearm. "Those injections are brain stimulants, though none of them have been legally approved, if you follow me. They were trying to judge how the chemicals would affect memory and the ability to generate memories."

"Did it hurt your brain?" queried Mel quietly.

"I get flashes of random memories here and there, and they intensified my seizures, but I've been able to control them with other chemicals," explained Eddie evenly.

The Holodeck imaged shifted again, this time to Eddie at an age around fourteen. She was stumbling through the Manticore woods, suffering from a bullet wound to the shoulder, with a small, uncomfortable-looking metal machine twisted onto her head, hooked over one eye and clamped onto her tongue. After staggering some ways through the forest, she came in sight of the perimeter fence. The Nomalie came within ten yards of the fence before she was jerked violently back by an unseen force. Lying twitching on the ground, they could see the bolts of electricity striking her in the eye and scorching her tongue, the bolts coming from the metal contraption about her head.

Presently, Eddie explained in a quiet voice, "It's called the Manticore Collar. They were testing it to see how much electricity a transgenic could handle without losing too many brain cells or nervous function."

Mel nodded thoughtfully. "So you went through a lot of physical testing?"

Eddie made an affirmative sound, adding, "That's not the worst of it."

"But you're okay now?"

The question was so sudden - so startlingly simple - that Eddie couldn't help but tumble out the words, "Are you?"

Both teens halted for a moment now. How could such a simple question hold so many different meanings? They stared at each other, unable to render a response. Were they okay? Physically, yes. Emotionally, probably not. So they left the question unanswered, instead exchanging sympathetic glances and breaking into a nervous bit of laughter.  

"So do the two of you want to look at some of the better times of your lives, because it might break up some of the tension between the two of you."  Nikki Brin said as she started to learn that the talking between these two girls had started to heal some of the wounds that they both had.  "Mel I know about your Boyfriend, Why don't you tell Eddie here about how the two of you met."  

Melfina felt like opening up to the Cat Nomalie about how she met Dalton.  

"Well the first time I heard about Dalton was though what my friends talked about at work about a few days after the Siege of Terminal City.  I was stuck on the outside with Shadow, Aspen and several scrounging units that Max and Alac had put together so that we could equip Terminal City with Supplies "

"It must have been scary for you."  Eddie said as her tail slowly twitched beside her.  

"Yes it was.  But the hardest thing for me to deal with was spending the entire week during the siege trying to get over my heat cycle and put together the cable hack that Exposed Ames White as a traitor to the world."  Mel paused for a second and continued.  "That and making a ton of Phone calls to Familiars in the area that Cerberus had put us onto so that any support that White had was nipped in the bud."  

"So you did a kinda Telesales thing to every Familiar in the Seattle Area so just say no to the guy."  Eddie said getting closer to Melfina.

"Yes.  It was 'Father of my Fathers, for the Sons of my Sons; and Mothers of my Mothers, for the Daughters of my Daughters' stuff being said umpteen dozen times, but on a few occasions a few of the Familiars decided to open up and shoot at him a couple of times for just approaching them.  After we told them that Ames would be identified as a Prototype X-series, which really got the shooting started."  Melfina giggled some at the last part.  Eddie just stared at her wondering, "What would this girl do if this girl ever got pissed at her?"  Or that they were more alike than the other would come forth with.  

"No way, you guys hacked into the Familiar's hidden Phone directory and Gave Ames at taste of what it was like to be one of us."  Eddie said looked at the X-Custom starting to giggle some.  

"Yeah, but the hardest thing I had to do was come out of the closet right in front of Normal My boss."  Mel said looking at the Nomalie before her.  "I suspected that he put the pieces together while I was gone.  How Cindy had behaved around me and that Max had done the shove their tongue down his throat heat thing a year earlier.  But I didn't have to say much other than 'Oh Shit' after he reached over after work and touched the back of my neck and I picked him up about a foot off of the floor."  Mel was at this time starting to cry as she started to say the next words.  "I let him down and held on to him and started to cry.  All I remember for about an hour is that Normal just held me and stroked my hair saying that I was safe."  Eddie just realized that Mel was scared going through all of that as Mel continued to tell her story.  

"I don't remember much of what I said to Normal but he understood that I was scared.  When I was able to get back into Terminal City I just walked around for a few hours to get a feel of the place, but I got hungry and hit the mess hall."  Eddie started to notice that Mel's face was started to glow as she grinned as her attitude changed to better memories.  "I was in the line getting my meal and one of the servers was this really cutie X6.  We looked at each other for the longest time," Eddie started to remember the loneliness she had felt during her time in the woods.  The passionate orgy she had shared with Panther, which had gotten rough and she had to get away from Panther and the Nomalie's layer for a shore while.  While she was bathing in a nearby stream she had run into Pick again.  She was distraught but Pick had given her his jacket to cover herself.  But Pick had stayed with her at his cabin even sleeping in the same bed with her.  No Sex, but Eddie remembered the warmness of his body had helped her cope with her moment of Animal Weakness and comforted her until their next meeting.  Eddie now knew that Mel had gone through the same thing.  

"It wasn't until Dalton started to ask about me from the other Transgenics he knew, he was finally able to track me down.   But it was weeks afterwards and I had attended this Costume party that was being held by a few of the Bike Messengers in the area at this Restaurant called The UFO Bar and Grill and the guy running the place was a member of the EO informant net."  

"So you ran into Dalton there."  Eddie said getting the feeling that there was something more going on with Melfina.  

"No I didn't, I ran into him the day after the party when I decided that some really cutie guy that I though was an X and I decided to go back to his place for some Busy fun."  Melfina said trying to remember the event and trying to forget it at the same time.  

"Well the guy that I was with as we were in shower to take a soothing bath together, the water washed off his barcode in my hand and he found my gill slits."  Melfina paused for a second before she continued.  "We both freaked and I ran out and grabbed my stuff.  About half an hour later I was at Nan and OC's place crying my eyes out."  

"So you are an emotional person when it comes to Ordinaries."  Eddie said looking at the girl.  

"Yes, it wasn't until the night of the fire I ran into an infiltrator and he blew away two of my friends before me.  It wasn't for Joshua killing the guy, I would have died." Melfina continued with the story.  "Where was it, Oh yes.  Well after the party I just needed to clear my head so I decided to go swimming with the Aquatics.  They saw me as one of their own.  Though I liked wearing a Drysuit, it just kept me warmer.  Well when I hit the beach.  Dalton found me."  Melfina said as the environment shifted towards the Seattle Beach.  

"Hey Mel, " Dalton said as the holographic replay of that day appeared before the Guardian and the Cat Nomalie.  Melfina who was wearing an Orange, and White dry suit stood on the beach looking out at the morning waves.  Dalton who was wearing his Standard Blue Jeans and sweatshirt came up by her.  From the crowd of Transgenics and Humans on the beach Mel just blended in.  But her Friend 

Aspen was standing by her with her long board surfboard and regular speed suit.  

"Hey Dalton, what's up."  Aspen said, as Mel just wanted to get into the water to become with her Eel side.  Dalton just came up to Aspen as Mel just entered into a meditative state so she could start using her gills.  

"Nothing much Aspen, just trying to get the inside scoop on the Jammers."  Dalton said with envious pride.  The Jammers as they known on the streets were Transgenics who not only brought Ames White and Senator McKinley down for several charges of murder, but also for high Treason in selling biological weapons to a Cult called the Conclave.  It was also known that some of the Jammers were rumored to be members of Eyes Only's Informant Net that just added to their mystique in the local folklore of the Transgenics.  For Transgenics Like Dalton, they were like the Elite Strike Teams back at Manticore with all the secret and neat stuff they did for the city.  Ever since he had seen Mel in the Lunch Line those weeks ago, that simple caring grin on her face, her foofy hair and those lovely brown eyes that screamed mysterious power.  He had become drawn to her like she was like him.  A scared kid just trying to make her place in the world.  And that he just wanted to get to know her better.  That is when he swallowed his pride and moved in front of her. 

"Hey Melfina, so do I mind that I watch you Surf?"  Dalton said, as Mel seemed to be in some sort of trance before him.  "Mel???..." He said, as she seemed to have her mind somewhere else.  

"Sorry, what your name?"  Melfina said as she came out of the trance.  Dalton just looked at her like this Trance had made her not notice he was talking with her friend Aspen.  

"Dalton."  He said realizing that there was something up with Melfina.  "Listen do you zone out all that often?"  He inquired.  

"Sorry Dalton, Just at times go deep into thought about things."  Melfina said as she attempted to lie about what was really up.  She just wanted to be with others of her kind and the only places she felt safe at was ether at the Aquatics layer where she could talk with Hannah and the other there about her problems or with the T-Bloods at their Church being one of the Guys, troublemaker all the way.  But in Terminal City she didn't feel right.  The Stigma of being a BioCyber still clung to her skin like the gills on the back of her Ears.  Right now all she wanted was to push by Dalton and his X6 Canine Ass and get in the water.  She was part Cat, Part Fish and Part human.  It just drover her crazy, if it wasn't some hormone induced mating urge from her cat side, then it was this urge to go swimming and not come up for air any time soon.  

"Dalton, I just want to go for a swim."  Melfina said as she started trudging right into the water.  Dalton was just following her and he was getting soaking wet in the process.  

"Melfina, I just want to get to know you better as a person.  Okay."  Dalton said as he reached out and touched her shoulder ever so lightly.  

"Okay, Dalton."  Melfina said starting to grin.  "But I'm a little shy."  Dalton looked at Melfina and sighed a little bit before he grinned.  

"I can live with that." he said as Mel walked off and dove into the water.  

"It took weeks for me and Dalton to become comfortable with each other before I told him I had Gills."  Melfina said to Eddie.  

"How did he take it?"  Eddie said looking worriedly at Melfina.  

"Well he was comfortable with the idea that I was part Cat."  Mel said as she remembered how she purred when he stroked her forehead while he was in his Barrack in Terminal City.  How she would lay on her back and look up at him during those romantic Moonlit nights, their eyes glowing brightly Lime Green.  Eddie just watched the scene before her, it was just like what she and Pick did on the couch of his place after watching Ally McBeal Reruns on TV Land.  They were more alike than the other would suspect other than the Nude Pretzel thing that she loved to do with Pick at his place on the weekends.  

"You know there are not all that many X6s with Cat in their Genetic Mix" Dalton said stroking her hair.  

"Yeah, I like to eat fishcakes."  Mel said making a joke as she giggled in his lap.  

"But from what I have been able to learn is that most of those X6s have been tweaked with a few extra features."  Dalton said looking at her as Mel started to get worried.  Her eyes shown of terror from the teasing of her youth.  "Freak...  Reject... Gill Head."  The words still ate at her soul like a cancer.  

"Dalton.  I'm...." Mel was ready to spill the preferable beans to Dalton but was cut off by Dalton's next words.  

"I know, an X-Custom."  Dalton said it with compassion and caring in his voice.  "I don't care about that Mel, I love you for you...  Gills and all."  Dalton stroked her face as he moved to behind her ears and touched the edge of one of her gill slits with the tip of his finger.  Melfina moved her chin into the palm of his hand and held it with her hands as she started to cry.  

"How long have you known?"  Mel stated as she got out of his lap and sat up on his bunk next to him making her feline cautious side known to him.  

"A few days now."  Dalton said leaning over to hug her side.  "Ever since you fell asleep in my cot next to me after you had Cindy's Raspberry Daiquiri's at Nanushka's birthday party.  You kinda wouldn't let go of my arm when you were with me.  As you slept I noticed something behind your ears and learned that you had gills."  With that Mel touched her gills with her left hand while looking at Dalton.  "I pretty much deduced that you were an X-Custom from that and by your nickname Shocky and I just put the pieces together from there."  At this time Mel had started to curl up into her defensive ball but Dalton stopped her from continuing.  "I know that it was difficult for you guys after the Pulse, being retrained and reprogrammed.  But I understand, I like you for being you.  That is who you are Melfina. The Girl I am in love with."  With that Melfina leaned over and hugged Dalton with the love and compassion she thought she would never show towards another being.  

"I love you Dalton.  I love you." Melfina said repeating the words of her Holographic counterpart.  "With that Dalton and I were close from then on."  

"So why were you running?"  Eddie queried her with the question that was sticking in the back of her mind.  

"I just wanted to be a regular X6 like every body else."  Melfina said not realizing that in anther room Brin and Aspen were learning whey brought there with the two X6 kids.  

***

Shannon, Brin and Aspen were walking through the hallways of the Guardian's compound.  The place looked like a mix of a Nuclear Missile silo with pipes and tubing everyplace and the polished hallways of the Starship Enterprise E.  

"Whoa, this place feels like I'm in a TV Show."  Brin said looking around at the structure around her.  

"Yeah, Haley our resident Engineering student is a Big Star Trek fan."  Shannon said to Aspen and Brin.  "She went as far as having surgical implants put into her forehead to look like a Klingon."  

"So in other words there are people more strange than you and Nikki Brin."  Aspen said after getting a look at a girl with four arms in coveralls doing maintenance on a computer terminal before her.  

"Yes." Shannon said as they entered into the main control room of the compound.  The room was a circular structure with multiple stations around a holo-graphically projected sphere that had globes rotating in it.  Some of the globes glowed one color say yellow while most of the spheres glowed green.  It was the spheres that were glowing yellow that had most the people in the room's attention.  It was like they were keeping an eye on those worlds like they showed some unknown importance to them.  The place was some sort of inter-dimensional crisis room.  

"As you can see there are many individuals from different Dimensions."  Shannon continued speaking with both Brin and Aspen seeing the variations of humans before them.  Some of the people had four arms like the mechanic in the hallway while other looked like creatures out of mythology Cyclops, Centaurs, werewolves, a Gargoyle like the one she saw on the Disney Cartoon channel late at night.  But there were creatures she somewhat recognized by some of the cultural garb they wore.  Some of the people looked like they were from Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt while others look like people you would pass by on the street.  That included a black cat girl who looked very much like a Nomalie wearing a ton of ancient Egyptian jewelry and hairstyle.  But it was the dang elves she saw with their semi-pointed ears that looked kinda of like they came out of J.R.R. Tolken's The Lord of the Rings.  But the weirdness finally hit her and Brin when they saw a girl in a skimpy green dress with foliage coming out of it.  

"So you have noticed Lilly, our resident Dryad."  Shannon said as the girl was working at a workstation with a ton of plants and a small Bonsai Tree.  

"You mean that she is a Wood Nymph."  Aspen said from her study of mythology with Joshua.  

"Yes."  Shannon said as the girl got up and came towards them.  "Lilly, what is it?"  The girl had a worried look on her face as she presented a tablet computer to him.  

"Shannon, we have a problem Lee and Grabber are in trouble on world 444 in dimension 660004450."  Lilly said as a man in a white and Brown Hemp Shirt and Pants approached them that looked like something a alien ambassador would wear in a Star Trek Movie.  

"Lee and Grabber were visiting on of his old high school pals on that world."  From the physical appearance he looked like he as a mixture of Greek and Egyptian from the brown eyes and brown hair he had.

"Yes Kal, so are they in transit back?"  Shannon said in worried voice.  

"They are in transit back,"  Lilly said with a worried look.  "Lee needs to be rushed to med bay 5, she was shot by an optic cannon."  

"How much of Lee is still intact?" Shannon's question was very strange to both Aspen and Brin.  

"Why did you ask about how much there is left of Lee when you asked Kal and Lilly?"  Brin said looking at Shannon with growing concern in her eyes.  

"Brin, Aspen I think that you stay here and watch the command monitors."  Shannon said as Centaur wearing a sports jersey.  "Xenon, keep an eye on these two, their friends are in Middleverse room 5."  

"Listen, Lee and Graber are my pals. Heck, I taught him archery with my father's bow."  The Centaur said as moved over between Aspen and Brin "I'm going to the embarkation room with you.  If you are concerned about those two losing contact with their buddies in the Middleverse world room.  Don't worry I can transfer the data to a portable terminal so that they can watch the stuff unfold."   With that the Centaur taped in a few controls and a broadcast of Eddie and Melfina's counseling session came up on the screen.  

"Okay, get Angel on the line and tell her that we have wounded coming in."  Shannon said as they moved into a lift and was transported to a different part of the compound.  They were about to see a girl with a basketball sized hole in her chest be pieced back together right before them.  

***

Max was walking around Cindy and Nanushka's apartment in the thirty block zone of territory the City of Seattle had set up to monitor Human and Transgenic relations.  The place had looked like some explosion had gone off and Cindy and Nan were scared.  Logan was next to her along with Alac.  

"So let me get this straight... Mel comes here to tell you that she is going to move in with the Aquatics and when Aspen finds out she barges right on through the door and they argue.  Correct?"  Max said pacing around the room looking at the singe marks on the floor.  

"So you say that Melfina fired a blast from her hand and after that both she and Aspen disappear in a flash of light."  Logan said as he looked around the room attempting to figure out what had happened to the Gias and the BioCyber.  

"Yeah Boo, it was real scary they were standing right where you were...."  With that Original Cindy's words just were cut off.  Max turned to look around to see where Cindy was but she did not see her friend.  What Max did see was the same apartment but it was decorated differently.  The place kinda felt like it had her stuff spread out through the place but what caught her attention was the fact that there was a sleeping baby boy sitting on the table of where Nanushka's was sitting at.  Then Max heard a click of the door as someone came it.  Max was in the middle of the kitchen and as much as she wanted to move she couldn't. Then she heard a voice.  

"Eddie... it's me.  I'm home."  The voice sounded a lot like Sam's.  But it lacked some of the nuances of her extended Manticore training.  Then Max heard another voice and it was Alac's.  

"Max, listen I know that Eddie's school called.  They said that Eddie has had trouble dealing with the assault incident she went through a few days ago."  Alac said as both he and a copy of herself came into view.  

"Alac I know but I care about her a lot, heck she is practically family after what happened in New Hope."  the Max said as she looked to where the baby was placed in his carrier on the table.  "It looks like Brin is here because little Ben is here..."  the Max said as she stopped in her tracks when she saw Max standing right before her.  

"Um, Hi."  Was all Max could say to her counterpart.  

"Hi."  The other Max said to the first one.  Her train of thought was put to a stop and shifted into overdrive as she debated about who this other person was.  Both Max's where in a standoff in that they did not know what to say next.  All that changed when Alac came into the scene.

"Honey, listen I have checked the apartment and I can't find Eddie or Brin any where."  That is when he caught a glimpse of the other Max in the room.  Alac stopped in his tracks when he saw the two of them.  "What the???"  was all he could say.  

Max just looked at the two as she said with disgust "Honey...  As in I am married to you Honey."  With that Max felt something grab a hold of her and she let out a screech as she was pulled back to her own reality.  

"Boo, are you okay?"  Cindy said as she and Max were on the floor of the kitchen together.  "Part of you was here and well the rest of you was in whatever that is."  She pointed towards the shimmering spot of where Max was in moments ago.  

"Yeah, I'm okay but I think wherever Aspen and Mel disappeared off to, I think that we just found out that wherever I was might be where they are at."  Max said with worry realizing that if she had seen herself that would mean that that other her had fallen in love with Alac and probably had married the jerk.  

"I think we are going to need some help here."  Logan said getting out his cell phone and made a few calls to Terminal City and to Cerberus.  In the next hour or so Logan and Max would learn about what was going on and why a rift in the space-time continuum had opened up in OC's and Nanushka's apartment.  

***

Aspen, for reasons unknown to herself, stuck close to Brin as they weaved through the crowded entrance to the Guardians' medical bay.  Shannon was in front of them, coolly sifting through the crowd, and they kept a close eye on his back.  As they passed underneath the grand archway marked '5' that led into the medical bay, an emergency crew toting two halves of something rushed past.  Brin made a strangled sound, but no words were exchanged regarding it.

"This way," said Shannon, noticing their lost concentration.  He led them toward a less crowded area of the medical bay.  Above the din of so many people in one area, the two Transgenics could clearly hear someone cursing angrily.

Brin let out a breath, her hair rustling in response, as a red-haired woman came into view, followed closely by an eight-foot-tall monster.  She stopped dead in her tracks, jaw flopping open, and stared.

"Aspen, Brin, this is Grabber," stated Shannon as he made a broad gesture to the eight-foot monster.  "You may recognize him, you may not.  His reference in your world was long before your time."

"He's a Predator," announced Brin thoughtfully.  "Watched it once.  Okay, really. James Cameron flick."

Grabber made a face that was presumably the equivalent to a smile and clapped Brin on the shoulder in greeting, then did the same to Aspen. The two Transgenics returned the gesture, having to stand on their tiptoes a bit to reach, and then their attention was called to the woman on the bed, who was streaming swear words as fast as she could talk.  There were several doctors and nurses gathered around her.

"And that's Lee," said Shannon, waving his hand toward the woman.

Brin and Aspen winced as they peered into the scene.  A basketball-sized hole had been blown into the girl's chest - and how she still lived, much less shouted every obscene word known to a hundred different realities was too crazy to even ponder on.  Her flaming red hair was sticking out in all directions like a wild mane.

"Shit," she seethed.  "Goddamn idiots..."

A doctor was preparing a syringe while Lee vocalized her distaste for the situation some more.  With a practiced cool, he grabbed Lee's flailing arm and quickly injected the clear substance inside.

"Well it's about damn time," barked Lee, settling back into the pillows.

Aspen and Brin watched, shocked, as the jagged flesh of Lee's wound began to close in.  Her flesh and organs regenerated before their very eyes like some fantasy flick, but it was no visual effect.  Within minutes, she was fully healed, and all she had to show for it was slightly mismatched skin tones.

***

Mel watched Eddie as the she got up and walked over to the window, crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing her arms self-consciously. "So... you and Pick... how'd that work out?"

Eddie glanced at her thoughtfully. "I'm not quite sure myself..." She smiled fondly at the thought of her boyfriend and rubbed the back of her neck.  "I mean, the first time we met, he left me with a broken leg in the middle of a forest.  Then, I stole his motorcycle... and, somehow, he ends up comforting me about screwing Pan in my heat cycle... After that, we kind of forgot about each other for a month until some higher power threw us back together..." Her smile widened at the memory, which appeared on the holograph.

Jackie, the X5 who helped the 'nomlies before they went into Terminal City, had taken Eddie into town for supplies.  Eddie had a bandana tied around her pointed ears and wore a pair of contacts to hide the shape of her eyes.  She had somehow become separated from Jackie in the crazy Seattle market, and was on the verge of panicking when she ran into a wall hard.  The wall then jumped away from her as she flopped onto the ground and peered up into a familiar pair of eyes.

"You!" she exclaimed.

"And you!" he replied as he helped her to her feet. "You okay?"

"Fine, fine."

They stared at each other for a moment or two, then Eddie abruptly threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. He smiled and put his hands on her waist affectionately.  For that brief moment, all her reserves and her worries melted away.  She was safe.  Safe in the arms of someone who cared.

"Nice to see you, too," he said into her ear.

Presently, Eddie laughed and looked at Mel, who was also smiling. "You understand, right?"

"Yeah," Mel replied.  She rubbed her neck absently.

"I mean, there's something about Pick that makes me whole, you know?  He taught me to love cars and dancing and Tolkein and swimming and Winona Ryder and me.  He taught me to love me," continued Eddie contentedly.  "And I love him."

"Same with Dalton." Mel stood and joined Eddie at the window. "Strange how that works, huh?"

Eddie chuckled in spite of herself.  She touched Mel's shoulder.  "But it's not like he came on a silver platter.  I had to fight this PsyOps for him."

"Catfight?" joked Mel.

"Something like that.  More of a I proved to him that she was a worthless bitch," replied Eddie with a wink.  "I did get to hit her, though."

The holograph showed Eddie slugging a blonde PsyOps and the two girls couldn't help it - they burst into giggles.

***

Back in the Guardian Med Bay 5, Shannon got a beep from command that attracted Aspen and Brin's attention away from Grabber and Lee.  He checked his transmitter and sighed.  "Max has discovered the gateway.  We have to get you two back to the Middleverse room to explain things."

Quickly Aspen and Brin were following Shannon out of the room as Lee started to punch Graber in the arm as she had several IV tubes put into her.  

"Graber, if I ever find that Asshole again, I will show him what pain is by personally removing his Kahonee's with a spoon."  Lee said as she looked at the tattered remnants of her favorite t-shirt.  

"Yeah, Well judging from the projections.  We will at least get two more members added to the order."  The Predator said to his Enhanced friend.  

"Yeah, but it won't be those four." Lee said seeing the Transgenics leaving the room.  "But I will sure be glad when one of their species joins the team.  I mean I want to talk shop with someone that is Engineered as well."  Lee said as Graber held her hand tight.

"Yeah.  They are great warriors.  People worthy of calling Friend."  Graber said letting his smile grow.  "I hope that both Melfina and Eddie's role in things will allow their members of their worlds to make contact with us soon."  Then Graber looked at the monitor displaying the Middleverse room.  "Because they are about to meet some consequences of their actions that they will need some serious help to deal with."  

"Yeah," Lee said looking over towards Kal.  "Because Kal's species is about to make first contact with that planet and after what happened on his world."  Lee said looking at the rough cloth shirt that Kal always wore.  "It nearly lead to the extinction of two different races."  

"Yeah.  Both his species and the Humans nearly became extinct on that world." Graber said as he looked at the monitor with a countdown on it.  One year, five months, and counting.  

***

The feeling in Shannon's chest felt like it was racing at a hundred miles per-hour as he entered into the Middleverse room.  

"Okay Guys, I apologize for barging in like this.  But it looks like your friend Max has stumbled upon the doorway we used to bring you two here."  Shannon said as Brin and Aspen followed in right behind him as the door opened and closed shut behind them.  

"What's up Shadow."  Nikki Brin said as Shannon started to pull out his terminal access pad.  

"Nikki Brin I believe that when you opened the doorway between Eddie's and Mel's worlds, you kinda left a gap open between dimensions."  Shannon said showing her the incident where Melfina's Max had wound up for several moments in Eddie's world. 

"Oh, Crap."  Was all Nikki Brin could say as she saw the scene unfold before her.  

"That is an understatement."  Shannon said as he pressed several controls on the pad.  "Listen I have to do some damage control here so everyone prepare to meet with your counterparts."  He said as he pressed several controls and dimensional overlay started again.  The scene looked like something had seriously unfolded in different forms.  The Logan from Aspen's world was sitting with Original Cindy as their Max paced back and forth.  

"Logan, I'm telling you I saw myself with Alac and there was a baby right there on the table sleeping in a little carrier."  Max was really wigged out from what had happened to her.  

"Okay, it is time we fixed this."  Shannon said as he looked at the other scene unfold in Eddie's reality.  Alac and Max were comforting little Ben worried about the woman that looked Max who had shown up and disappeared in their kitchen several moments earlier.  

"Alac, if that woman who looks like me knows where Eddie and Brin are at, then I think we should see if I can go through that vortex to see if they are there."  Max said worried about the possible consequences of what might happen if she went through with her actions.  

"This party is over with."  Shannon said as he tapped a few controls to stop Eddie's Max from entering into the vortex as he projected the images of everyone in the Middleverse room into both realities.  The shock on everyone's faces was priceless.  

"What the..." everyone in both universes said as the apartments were filled with old friends and unfamiliar people.  

"Um, Hi Max."  Eddie said as she and Brin moved together to appear right before their Max and Alac.  

"Hey guys."  Aspen said to their Max, Logan, Cindy and Nanushka.  Nanushka looked like she was about to have a massive coronary after she said "Oh my God." 'moy shov voy' in fluent mother tongue of Russian.  Eddie just turned to see the tall Russian Lesbian hug behind Original Cindy.  This was way too much weirdness for her.

"Okay everyone."  Shannon said to the room full of people as they all turned their eyes to him.  "It would be good if I explained some things to ya'all."  he finished in his western drawl.  

"Yeah, and I think Nan is about to wet her pants."  Melfina said looking at her friend as walked right through a chair, which got everyone's attention.  

"Hey Shocky.  What they Hell did you do to become a ghost."  Cindy said as Melfina's incorporeity got everyone's attention.  

"I might explain..."  Shannon said to the room.  "That me and my friend Nikki Brin here, " he gestured to the teenaged Asian girl with him, "are members of a Multi-dimensional order called the 'Guardians' which is charged with the mission to patrol the Multiverse and ensure that catastrophes such as those that can lead to a planet's destruction are stopped.  Trust me after the Cuban Missile Crisis back in the twentieth century happened the number of nukes that went off caused several alien races to start up a group whose job it was to make sure that the Multiverse was protected from catastrophic events such as that.  The amount of high-energy interchange that occurred from those events caused the Multi-verse to shatter and caused uncontrolled rifts to occur.  Now Me and others like me are from Worlds who have discovered the Multiverse and use it to travel and explore.  But preventing another event such as the Cuba from happening again which leaked all that energy between dimensions is our key mission.  And these two worlds are the linchpins that if they fall to destruction from the Familiar's Coming, well the Multiverse is screwed even before you make First Contact."  Shannon Paused before continuing along.  "Now looking around this room you can see the Parallel time lines that the residents of Terminal City took during the Siege."  Everyone in the room started to look at each other more intently.  

"See in each timeline all it takes is a fraction of second to change an outcome of an event and the after effects and be felt centuries later."  Nikki Brin said as she pulled out her control tablet and brought up a two-Dimensional view screen that everyone could look at.  Your friends Eddie and Melfina are the focal points of these two timelines diverging themselves.   But in true essence it is Melfina here whose life has had the greatest outcome in the timelines differing."  Everyone n the room took a look at Melfina as the young X-Custom looked at the screen where her life and the life of her counterpart differed.  The time it would take to end one life with the last bullet from a automatic weapon and the last bullet missing it's mark. 

"Because of me dying in Eddie's timeline" Melfina said to everyone on the room.  "Eddie wound up with the events of my life, all the mess and difficulties she has had."  Melfina paused as the Cat Nomalie picked up from where she was at.  

"Because of me,"  Eddie said leaning over to where Melfina was at.  "Mel has been able to help in ways we never imagined. My counterpart has become her friend and helped her with some of the rough spots in her life, while I have helped take away some of the harshness that would have made her committee suicide in this timeline.  As well as me attempting to kill myself in this timeline"  There were gasps of shock among their friends.  

"The two of them still have a part to play in the destinies of your worlds."  Shannon said to everyone.  "This is why we had this little meeting between the two of them."  Shannon said as he hugged the pair between him.  

"So what is so important for them to be brought together?"  the Max from Eddie's world said as Little Ben started to coo as he saw his mommy nearby.  

"Well it is because of Melfina and Eddie that your worlds were saved from the destruction that have claimed many others."  Shannon said as he started to fast-forward the projection and morph it into a graph.  "Because of Melfina in her timeline she brought together people that had Terminal City protected from the outside through her friend Shadow leading a strike team that saved both the National Guard troops and the Sector Police from being slaughtered b White's forces.  While in Eddie's timeline.   S1W and Colonel Lydecker were able to fight off White's Forces and the Centurions but at a high price.  Eddie's part in this timeline was to ensure that the Seeds of Doubt were entered into a Centurion Alpha's head who in the future will be helping you out take down the Familiars."  

"Yeah and having Reika leading the Centurions is a good thing considering that they have been busy forming alliances with the other Super soldier series around the world and teaching them that they have a voice now that will speak on their behalf."  Aspen said looking at the newspaper that was sitting on Nanushka's coffee table.  The headline said, CENTURIAN/ACT-I/FREAK NATION ALLAINCE GROWS.  

"So it looks like you guys have done well for your selves."  Alac said looking at the Newspaper as well.  

"Actually no."  Melfina's Max said, "we are still battling our way up into getting full rights for our kind but we have been able to clean up most of the Committee's mess in the process.  But the Conclave has fractioned and that had made them even more dangerous."  Max Finished looking out at the cityscape from the apartment.  

"Hopefully I can figure out What Sandeman wanted me to do, because I want to have a family."  With that Logan moved over to Mac and hugged her.  Eddie's Max just looked at the scene before her.  Her counterpart had actually overcome the virus and was going to marry Logan.  "I see that you and Alac have started a family together.  I can understand..."  Max said as she paused for a moment.  "Alac once you get past all his arrogance and his feeling of loss over Rachel is a nice person."

"Yeah he is,"  The other Max said to her counterpart.  

"Listen scientists on both your worlds will make the discovery of the Multiverse and hear signals of First Contact within the next few years."  Nikki Brin said as looked at the humans and Transgenics in the room.  "Max's it is your job to save the world from destruction.  But it is Eddie and Mel here who will be charged with helping you protect the Multiverse from being breached by the Coming."  

"Yeah you two.  Know that you will be meeting again when that happens and you will be helping stop the Coming on each other's worlds."  Shannon said as he prepared to reinteragrate Brin and Eddie to their worlds and Aspen and Melfina to theirs.  

"Hey you two before you go here is some advice.  Eddie stick close to Diana Guzman she will help you through the rough times ahead of you."  Nikki Brin said as Eddie started to move closer to Melfina.  "And Melfina, you will meet a girl named Olan."  Nikki Brin paused for a moment before continuing.  "The first time you will meet, she will be scared out of her wits and Naked in the Girls Locker Room in Terminal City, trust me just be there for her.  It will take a day or so before she talks to you after the entire chanting thing about the War Bride happens."  

"Chanting..?!!"  Melfina said giving a sour look on her face.  

"Yes, chanting.  It won't make sense at first but it should give you a clue about Max's true origins."  Nikki Brin said as she started to move over to the two teenaged Transgenics.  "Listen it was great knowing you two but we have to get you two back home."  Nikki Brin reached out with her hand and shook their hands before she moved away.  

"Yeah it was nice meeting you."  Eddie said as she reached over and hugged the female Guardian.  

"Same here."  Melfina said not giving Nikki Brin a handshake but a hug.  "Thanks to you I now know that I am not alone in the universe."  Then Melfina turned towards Eddie and hugged her tight.  "Eddie thanks for being my friend.  I don't feel so alone anymore.  I won't run away from my problems because they are hard I'll face them like you have face on."  Mel finished as tears started to streak down her face.  

"Yeah Melfina.  I am me and I cannot change that."  Eddie said as her tail started acting under her control for the first time in her life.  "The Blue Lady made me the way she did so that I would always know that I have to fight to be who I am and not be ashamed of it."  Eddie said as her hug showed her true emotions.  

"Yeah and you scored the cutest X-series in Terminal City to top that."  Melfina said to her new Nomalie friend.

"Yeah, that's right."  Eddie said grinning ear-to-ear looking Melfina in the face.  "I'm a bitch and proud of it, if they say "come here kitty, kitty."  I'll say back, "yeah, but this cat has claws and knows how to use them you ass wipe"."  With that the two of them started to laugh out loud.  

"You do that, I have gills and I'm proud of them."  Melfina said as she hugged her friend one last time before she walked over to where Aspen was at..  "Nice knowing you and take care."  She said as they started waving towards each other as they started to integrated back into their own dimensional timelines.  

"Well see the two of you around the block."  Shannon said as they drifted back to their own dimensional realms.  "Oh, well patch that hole in the space-time continuum in your kitchen as we are leaving."  With that Eddie and Brin reintegrated into their timeline. Brin walked over and picked up her son from Max and held him tight.  

"Mommies her Little Ben."  Brin said as her child started to giggle in joy.  Eddie just stared into the kitchen as a shimmering light appeared for a moment as Shannon's form appeared for as he used some weird looking hook looking device to twist the tear and sew it up.  Before the last seam was patched together a picture was dropped through as it started to flitter into Eddie's hands.  

The young cat Nomalie too a moment to look at the picture in her hands.  It was a picture of Melfina and Aspen joking off with each other.  Melfina was on Aspen's back as Mel was pulling off or attempting to stick on a pair of bunny ears on her head.  On the back of the photo it said.  "Mel and Aspen joking around TC, Dalton Strikes again."  Eddie just started laughing she had a friend and heading to school tomorrow was definitely going to better.  Now how was she going to face Diana Guzman and get to know her without having the crap being kicked out of her.  That was the question that she kept asking herself.  Why couldn't she get stuck with the Nude Chanter.  

***

Melfina was looking at the rift between dimensions seal itself as Nikki Brin sewed it up.  Well Mel was not going to run away from her problems.  Aspen was right she had to face her problems head on as she headed over to hug Aspen, 

"Thanks for being there Aspen.  It took a while for me to understand what you were saying.  Maybe I was just afraid of being around others since I was a child.  With all the hatred and torture I endured growing up I was scared.  So after Lauren came out about what she was to the residents of Terminal City, I was scared it would happen to me since we were in the same unit together."  At that moment Cindy spoke up to Melfina as she walked over to her and took her hands into her own and started to speak to her.  

"Shockey..."  Cindy said as Nanushka moved over to the young Transgenic.  "Lauren is not being ostracized for being a BioCyber...  She is being sunned by the Males of Terminal City in that she is part of the personnel who watches of the Heat Cell."  Melfina as in shock when Cindy said this to her.  

"You mean...."  Melfina was only able to stutter out that much before the information finally sunk in.  

"Yes she is a Heat Guard!!!"  Cindy said as she looked into the Transgenics eyes.  "That is why the males in TC ate her so much.  He has run them out of the Harem so many times that she is not liked by them.  Mel, she has been living her life, hell Shocky She is dating Harry and the rest of the BioCybers have been living normal lives."  Cindy said as the information started to sink in for her.  

"So, you want me to visit her in TC and learn about the others like myself."  Melfina said as she started to sort through the facts coming towards her.  

"Yes, that is right Mel.  You are my friend and that most of your fears are not in your mind, but you are constantly being haunted by your past."  Cindy said as she hugged Melfina close.  "This should at least let some of the ghosts you have go."  There was a grin on both of her faces as Mel started to cry lightly on Cindy's shoulder. 

"Yeah and Next time, you won't have to have shrinks from the outer dimension come and give you group therapy."  Aspen said as this information started to sink into everyone in the room.

"Yeah, but I have the feeling that the next time we meet them it will probably not be under the best conditions."  Logan said looking out the window over the city.  "Aspen I think Eyes Only should be made abreast of the encounter that you and Melfina had while you were in their domain."  

***

In the Middleverse Realm Shannon walked out of the Middleverse room as he bumped into the four-armed engineer Helix.  

"Shannon..."  Helix said as she pulled the control tablet from her toolbox and handed it to Shannon.  "While you and Nikki Brin were in the Middleverse room there was an alert that came in from the council."  There was a pause in her voice.  "Malicate has escaped from the Prometheus realm."  

"Shit.."  Shannon said realizing who Malicate was.  "Just great...  We have an Interplanetary Interdementional terrorist loose."  Shannon paused as he looked as Kal had a look of anger on his face.  The type of look that daggers would shoot from his eyes with deadly accuracy towards their target.  Malicate was the man that nearly caused the mess that nearly led to the extinction of both his species and the humans on his world.  The leadership of both the Humans and the his species had with the Guardian's help had placed him in a prison dimension where he was to spend the rest of his life for his crimes of mass Genocide.

"Where did he flee to?"  Shannon said as Graber walked towards him wearing his Coco Crisp sports jersey.  

"Take a guess."  The Predator said looking as Kal passed by.  

"Oh, Crap. You mean he just fled to the dimension I just came from."  

"Yes." was the only response needed.  

"Great, just Great.  The super villain that a guy who had a subconscious link with on my world.  Who created a eight hour mini-series off of it for the Freaking Sci-Fi channel has just escaped from a Maximum security facility is loss on Melfina's planet."  

"Yes and no both the realms you were connected to and the Bad news is, is that he has the Familiar's timetable and has ditched his fold unit so it will take us months for us to find him."  Shannon said  realizing that things for his team had gotten worse.  

"So, what is the news from the Council?"  Helix said as she folded both sets of her arms in front of her.  

"They have put us on watch duty and to keep an eye on both realms.  This is now a priority search for him, they want us to send teams to those worlds to keep an eye on them."  Graber said leaning down to pick up Helix's toolbox. "They want observation teams ready in one hour, they want the team to have Kal on it."  

"This is going to get ugly."  Shannon said as he moved to the command center.  

***

TBC   

*** 

Send any comments, ideas, or complaints to Shannon Hearn @ Shannon_hearn@hotmail.com or Brin @ gadzooks07@yahoo.com 


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